


there's a thousand things you think you don't deserve

by StainedWhite (Precious_Little_Stardust)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, KakaGai if you squint, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 11:01:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9817058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Precious_Little_Stardust/pseuds/StainedWhite
Summary: "I've got you."The one in which Kakashi gets into a screaming match with himself at the memorial stone and it's really just going downhill from there. (quite literally)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I bet you don't curse god" by Christina Grimmie. (( ;///; my heart still hurts so much ))

„It’s just like you, you know?“, he sets his jaw, looks away. There isn’t much he can do. Isn’t much anyone can do at this point.

Minato is dead.

„I trusted you, and you ... you try to save everyone, for fuck’s sake – that was my job! To keep you and Kushina safe!“

There’s silence, of course. Why wouldn’t there be silence? It’s always silence. He’s been talking to dead people all his life after all.

„And to make things fucking perfect, you sealed the demon inside your boy – my ... – you wanted me to be his _brother_! But you ... left me. And him. You left us all alone!“

There is rain on his face now. It only started recently and he isn’t quite sure why he can’t see the memorial stone anymore. It had been perfectly sunny just two minutes ago. Maybe the sky cries when he can’t – because obviously, he’d had problems with his lacrimal gland for the better part of his life. (He ignored the fact that there had never been any problems with his tear glands and he probably is the one crying, but that would be like admitting weakness and he isn’t … isn’t weak. He was ...- is a failure but he can still have that last shred of dignity, thank you very much.)

„I don’t know how to be ... a brother ... I don’t even know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to be anything other than a stupid killer and a curse. You know? Which is why I’m actually glad Sandaime made everyone who knew you ... stay away from Naruto. In case we let it slip that he has the demon fox sealed inside of him. Which wouldn’t even matter at this point since he’s a baby. He wouldn’t know the difference between demon fox and ramen. “

There’s someone laughing, and it takes him a terrifying ten seconds until he realizes that he’s the one who disturbs his own tirade. He’s so detached from everything, it would make him feel uncomfortable if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t. Can’t feel, that is. There’s nothing where his anger and sadness and frustration should be. It’s all just … gone. There’s a suffocating hole in his chest and it hurts. There’s blood on his hands when he looks down and there’s iron in his mouth and demon chakra in his nose and the smell of burning flesh in the air when he’s not paying attention to his surroundings. There’s Rin in front of him and he has his arm all the way buried inside her chest, a fist balled up around her still beating heart und sticking out at the other side of her body, where he went right through her spine, too and she’s looking up with sensei’s eyes and Obito’s mindless excuses turn into violent accusations--

He can’t sleep. He can’t eat. He can’t stand still, can’t feel, can’t make his chest be less tight, less aching.

“I hate myself”, he admits, quietly, out of breath. He feels like he’s been running for a long time. “I hate myself so much and I wish I’d been the one to go instead of Obito. I wish I could’ve saved you and I wish I could’ve protected you from the afterworld.”

There’s something in his throat. It’s so tight and he can’t breathe around it for a few seconds until he tries to take a very deep breath and can’t get the air out – he panics for another few seconds, panics because he can’t fucking breathe … until he realizes that might be a good thing and he’s crying, crying tears of joy because he doesn’t have to kill himself and he doesn’t have to have his name carved into the memorial stone. He doesn’t have to be on the stone and taint all the heroes with his unworthiness. Even in death he’s such a failure and he doesn’t want to be on the stone with so many people who sacrificed themselves and gave up everything for the village --

 

“Easy there, Kashi …”, there are hands on his face now, someone stroking his cheeks and petting his hair and he hears them breathing really loudly into his ear – “do it like me, alright? Just easy breathing, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re fine, Kashi, you’re just fine.”

He does, then, because instincts tell him to listen to orders when he hears them and he breathes, slowly and surely and there’s air getting out of his lungs now, air filling them again, pushing the edges into his diaphragm, moving it up and down with his phrenic nerve.

“I’ve got you.”

He opens his eyes – didn’t notice that he closed them in the first place – and looks up at Gai. Gai, who is smiling bravely at him, who’s holding his face in his hands. (Not just his face but his whole world - although, he can’t even let himself think like that. Gai deserves better than him.)

He can feel the thumbs, hard with callus, against his naked skin.

There’s still stuff in his throat and his chest but he feels better, somehow.

“What- … what are you doing here?”, he asks, genuinely confused.

Gai looks at him strangely, before smiling even wider if that is humanly possible. “I was looking for you, rival, so I went to find you to challenge you for dinner!”

Kakashi shakes his head at that because it’s all he can do since he won’t get a word in otherwise. “I’m not … up to challenges … Gai.”

There’s something sad flickering over his … rival’s face - Kakashi can't help but flinch at admitting to the fact that Gai earned his respect a long time ago. He'd never admit it under any kind of torture but Gai's challenges, Gai's persistence keep him together, even if he is breaking apart slowly at the seams. He doesn’t want to admit that he feels bad for having turned down the offer. He doesn’t really feel anything apart from the constricting pain in his chest anyway, though, so it really doesn’t concern him much. If anything, it just ads to the pile of guilt he’s been harboring since the day his father killed himself.

Gai pets his hair one more time, before getting up to help him back on his feet. He doesn’t even remember going down. It should probably concern him, this loss of information about his own proprioception but ... it doesn't and he cannot find it in himself to even question his body's doings anymore. He's empty, drained, and it probably shows. 

“First one at your apartment gets to decide what we’re gonna have for dinner!”

“Gai ...”

“It’s going to be curry if you don’t hurry, rival!”, a short pause. “What a sweet youthful rhyme that was, did you hear it?”

 

There’s something warm curling up in his stomach, just beneath the pain, and he can feel how it’s easing it’s way up somehow. He looks at Gai again, shrugging before setting off onto the trees.

He knows, rationally, that he cannot let Gai get too close, otherwise he’ll end up dead as well. But just … just this once, he wants to be selfish, wants to have someone, too.

He grins behind his mask as he hears Gai swearing some hundreds of meters behind him.

 

Just this once, it’s okay. Even if he doesn't deserve this. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would've been studying, really, but I just finished watching Red Band Society and --  
> ... well, here we are? It's nothing, really. Just me ... writting things that don't have to be perfect for once. You can keep the mistakes.  
> oh, and here's my **[tumblr](http://hiraeth-wings.tumblr.com/)** :)


End file.
